Our Mission

We love travelling. To us, travel isn’t just about going places, it’s also about meeting people, discovering cultures, eating new food and most of all, learning how people do things differently than we do back home.

We believe that through hostelling, we become more conscious about the world around us; and we can even make the world a better place. Our mission is to build a community of conscious travellers who share a greater understanding of people, places and cultures through our network of hostels and people, and curated experiences that foster collective growth and development.

Why CO?

CO stands for community. It’s every conversation we’ve ever shared, every couch we've been invited to sit on. It’s how we connect, how we coexist. It's everything we have in common and everything we don't. It's who we are.

Our Values

To us, being travel conscious means travelling with open-mindedness, togetherness and mindfulness at the forefront. We want to help shape a global movement of conscious travellers who strive to create a more peaceful, tolerant world.

We raise consciousness about a better way of travelling, to being thankful and respectful of the people and the places that make each moment unique and memorable.

"We strive to bring together peoples of the world, so that sharing a meal, or wandering along a trail, they may learn to appreciate each other's viewpoint and outlook, and realize that we are a world brotherhood. Our task is to promote world peace, not by treaty or statesmanship, but by creating in the hearts of the people of all lands a deep mutual understanding."

- Jack Catchpool, former Hostelling International president

HI Canada in the Community

Every Saturday in summer, HI Trinity and Tuckamore Discoveries host an interpretive hike to a beach where you can enjoy a good old-fashioned Newfoundland boil-up featuring seasonal, local produce. Guests get the opportunity to meet locals and other tourists in the area while getting a taste of a tasty Newfoundland tradition.

In partnership with the North Shore Culinary School, HI Vancouver Jericho Beach has opened an on-site restaurant, NSCS Discovery Cafe, that provides cooking skills and training to youth and adults while serving up delicious meals. It's a bit of a win-win, supporting education in the community and serving up fresh, home-cooked, affordable meals for guests.

Each winter, HI Rivière-du-Loup hosts 15 teams of young snow sculpturists as they participate in the Intercollegiate Snow Sculpture Competition, which fills downtown Rivière-du-Loup with snowy creations. The hostel also awards a sustainability grant to the team whose work best introduces young people to other cultures.

In 2016, HI Trois-Rivières welcomed the region's first Frigo Free Go. This self-serve fridge is accessible to everyone in the community and is stocked by the community with fruits, veggies, bread and many other goodies all the time. This CDEC of Sherbrooke initiative is part of a sharing economy and aims to combat food waste while promoting a greener and more eco-friendly way of consuming goods.

As part of the Sleep for Peace campaign organized by Hostelling International during the International Day of Peace, HI Canada collected $1 from all overnight stays at participating hostels on September 21st. The funds were then donated to the Youth Travel Foundation for their Sleep for Peace grant, which awards deserving travel projects focused on making the world a better place.

Sustainability

HI Canada is committed to accepting sustainability as our responsibility, considering the socio-cultural, ecological and economic impacts of our business decisions, and measuring and sharing our successes and failures as we go.

HI-Q, The Quality Management System

HI-Q, the HI Quality Management System, complements HI's assured standards, and focuses on hostel management and operations. It takes best practices from quality systems around the world and tailors them to the specific needs of hostels. HI-Q enables hostels to consistently improve and deliver high standards to ensure you have a great hostel experience. HI-Q is now being implemented in HI hostels around the world. Hostels that successfully complete the programme will be certified and able to display the distinctive HI-Q logo - look out for it in the HI hostels you visit.

Our Code of Conduct

To ensure a comfortable stay Guests are required to conduct themselves in a reasonable and responsible manner at the Hostel and must not act in any way which may disturb other guests. Failure to adhere to this requirement may result in Guests being asked to leave the Hostel in which event all Charges and Additional Charges shall become immediately payable by the Guest.

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Tell us about yourself and win prizes

We’d love to get to know you and hear about your travels. Be part of a global study and enter a draw to win your choice of one of the following: an Overnight in share room for one, One year HI Canada membership, or HI Canada swag.